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King of Iron Pants,
I guess I reacted in a manner very similar to you in your previous post. That is, when you feel people aren't really listening, you tend to get frustrated. You are frustrated at me. I'm frustrated at several people, up until now, not including yourself. So with a lot of noise coming in, and frankly where the discussion (I suspect) has only been taken up in Barbannoy and not reviewed in the "Consent" thread by many posters, it gets frustrating answering questions that are irrelevant, already answered, or, at times, just plain stupid.
As I've said, time and again, you don't introduce laws with loopholes where possible. You certainly do not introduce laws that seek to close a loophole by introducing two other loopholes. And, in law, you have to consider the likelihood of innocent people being charged as a function of the law who would otherwise not be considered offenders. This point is key. As I've said, time and again, we all know that no woman would want to bring a vexatious rape claim against someone. But this is only in light of current law. So who's to say that if it wasn't made easier, more people (and they wouldn't only be women) wouldn't be encouraged to bring a frivolous case to bear? This is not to say that rape cases shouldn't be made easier to gain a conviction, because clearly there isn't enough cases upheld compared to reports, and what we can reasonably extrapolate as being unreported cases. So my point is not that being convicted for rape shouldn't be easier, it just should be better than to throw a blanket over the problem and say there is NO lawfull consent while intoxicated. Furthermore, you don't knowingly introduce laws that allow prosecution of people on extremely serious charges who would otherwise not be considered an offender by the community at large. By this, I mean large sections of the male community who regularly have fully consensual sex with their partners while intoxicated. Bare in mind the proposed law makes no distinction on the time you have known someone nor on the status of your relationship. The amendment made the provision of consent while intoxicated unlawful. Pure and simple. I just don't see what is so controversial! Nor do I see it as being particularly hard to grasp. It's not about going out and getting someone pissed until dribbling to gain a dubious consent. A point I made in both my first and second posts on the issue, and in many thereafter.
And this is before we get to my point that nobody wants to discuss about introducing intoxication as a mode of argument or contention in court. So If the particulars of the case are that a person "acquiesced" to sex while drunk, then if the defence argues reasonable doubt over the intoxication of the victim at the time, then there is reasonable doubt over whether there was a rape in the first place. If you think this wouldn't be argued you've got rock in your head, because the law states that "consent cannot be said to have been lawfully obtained if at the time of that consent the victim was intoxicated by drugs or alcohol ". So clearly, if the defence establishes that the only point of contention was the intoxication of the victim, if reasonable doubt can be cast over the status of the victims intoxication, then there is reasonable doubt over the while case. This is the 50% of my argument that has received less than 1% of the discussion. Maybe because it is less "sensational". I don't know. But is the opposite side of the same coin, so surely it deserves roughly 50% of discussion? But I guess it's kind of hard to cast me in a negative light on this point.....
Technically, the effect of the law would make a rapist of a husband and wife sitting in their lounge room, drinking wine and going to bed to have sex. Now let's be very clear on this. I understand that there aren't many wives out there who are going to report their husbands for rape. But the law doesn't make the distinction between apprehended and un-apprehended crime. If you've stolen something, you've stolen something, regardless of whether you are caught. You've committed theft, regardless of whether you are caught. If you rape someone you have raped someone, regardless of whether you have been caught.
I'm sure, that given that I have been explaining this since post one, none of that will get through. |
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